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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Ever feel distracted?! I do! Have you ever been busy doing something, only to realize an hour later that you got distracted from what you really meant to do? Yep, me too! Not only do we get distracted doing day-to-day stuff, but what I really want to talk about is that we get distracted from our vision a lot of times too. What is your vision for your family? If you aren't married, what is your vision for the family you will have? It's important to get a vision! Where do you get one? From God himself!! I have often gotten distracted from mine. I get so busy making sure the house is decent and the family is fed and the appointments are kept, and then all of a sudden I look up and remember that there is a REASON I'm doing all of these things! If I ever get sulky and think, "Poor me... the kids won't cooperate..." "Poor me... I never get appreciated for anything I do..." "Poor me... I could have been a great, famous singer, but here I sit and these children are taking up all my time..." WHOA THERE.... STOP the PRESS!!! Shelly Bradberry, The INNKEEPER gets distracted with negative thoughts?! Before I even realize it, I have bought into the lies... and I'm letting my guard down. I'm not paying attention to what my job really is... I'm certainly not paying attention to how important it is!! I have lost my vision. I have stopped building a wall of protection for my precious kids. Protection through prayer, protection through teaching them the Word, protection from the enemy, protection from a negative-thinking mommy!!! Nehemiah 6:3 says, “I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down. Why should the work cease while I leave it and go down to you?” You remember Nehemiah... he kept charge of rebuilding the wall! I would have never associated his job with mine until I heard this scripture at a ladies retreat this past April that I try to attend yearly. I now have this plastered in my mind. Don't go "down"... Nehemiah didn't. The folks who wanted him to leave his post, intended to harm him. He did not get distracted.... He was doing a GREAT WORK!!! Why should the work cease while you spend time muddling in self-pity? Does Satan deserve that time from you?! NO!!!! Protect your family from him... Build that wall! I'm not talking about keeping them away and secluded from everyone and everything! I'm talking about building a wall of spiritual strength around them, so that when they come in contact with the world's ways, they will see right through it and know how to handle it. That's one of my prayers... That's a piece of the vision I'm sharing today...

Monday, May 23, 2011

I just had an AMAZING moment with my daughter! She is such a special person and I love her so very much! She had disobeyed me several times today and I was quite frustrated with her, but somehow I also felt pretty patient. We had a climactic moment this morning where everyone was in trouble. All three of my oldest kids got in trouble together. I hate mornings like that!! When I was threw spanking Abigail, she was wailing and more distraught than I have ever seen her. -Grieved, as if her best friend had died or something. When she came to ask me for forgiveness, she had a difficult time getting the words out. Then all of a sudden she said.. more like yelled, “I HATE it when I do bad stuff! I hate it when the devil keeps me from obeying! I don’t know why I can’t do good!” That was odd to me for her to say, because she is a very good girl and hardly ever gets in trouble. I knew what this was about. She was feeling very guilty and overwhelmed with that guilt. She was sobbing in my chest. We had that pivotal moment, where she fell convicted and burdened beyond anything she or I could do for her. She recognized her need for a Savior! Oh how I wished for a way to record her beautiful prayer to the Lord. She asked for His help, thanked Him for dying for her, and asked Him to wash her sins away. Her prayer for salvation was more beautiful than any prayer I could have had her copy-cat. She immediately began smiling and it was so precious when she realized that she was now a Christian. She thought she was just praying… and she was… but the significance was astounding to me. Her cry for a Savior was no doubt heard… my daughter, is my sister, too.

Sunday, May 22, 2011

We've got plans for our house... LOTS of them! It's hard to decide which plan is of the most importance, but there is one plan Whit has made of ultimate importance: Get the rains that fall away from the house! Our house has not ever had any gutters, and it has needed some since 1930! The basement part of the foundation is crumbling because water has been pouring down into it for a long time. The grading of the land outside pushes water towards the house. Yes, Whit wants to regrade things, but little by little we are getting to those ultimate goals. No sense in fixing the foundational issues, for instance if the reason they exist... still exists! First and foremost in that project, we needed gutters. It just so happened that our wonderful friends, Bill & Nancy Harris were doing a huge house remodel, and needed to get rid of their existing gutter system. Bill told Whit that he could have them if he'd just take them down!! WOW! What a blessing! It wasn't an entirely easy job, but we love it when the Lord works such things together! Whit also got for free three 250 gal. tanks from our friends, Paul & Jen Edgar. In a short amount of time Whitley had them in place and had the gutters attached. Our huge backyard now has 3 big tanks to store water from the roof in! And I shouldn't forget to mention that he has hoses hooked up to carry the water to our garden! I'm writing about this today in complete gratitude for the rain God sent our way this past week. Even though Whit has had these tanks set up for quite a while, this was the first time God completely filled them! YAY! I don't have pictures of the filled tanks on here, but you get the idea!

"Farmer Whit" and the first storage tank

Helping Hands

Giving Some Lessons

And the connecting gutter:

Yeah, it might not be the prettiest thing, but its function is what is so important!

The sight of that rainwater in there, I must say, is VERY aesthetically pleasing. :o)

Monday, May 16, 2011

The Bradberry Family finally has a spot to say more about life than those one-liner Facebook posts! As we all know, life really isn't a one-liner! Our days are packed with love, work, play, and building, sharing, and making lots and lots of memories! I wanted a spot to be able to share thoughts to more folks and we all wanted to be able to have a place we could come to that would help us remember all that the Lord has brought us to and through. May we partake of His grace with you and may it be shared From Our Family To You And Yours!